Most people don't realize ministers are obligated to prepare and preach one great sermon in their career. In looking over my record of sermons, I noticed many "good" sermons, but an obvious lack in the list of a single "great" sermon.

Most people don't realize ministers are obligated to prepare and preach
one great sermon in their career. In looking over my record of sermons,
I noticed many "good" sermons, but an obvious lack in the list of a
single "great" sermon.
Perusing my list brought back some marvelous memories. I smiled as I
remembered each sermon and where I preached it. Of course, I'm at that
stage of life where the old memory juices don't flow as deep as they
once did.
Occasionally, I ran across the odd sermon that didn't really look
familiar. I must have preached them because they were on my list, but I
had no recollection of them.
Every minister has three kinds of sermons in his repertoire.
(1) Sermons that hold wonderful memories as he reflects back on them.
The preacher's main occupation, of course, is preaching. And nothing
delights him more than pursuing his occupation with all his might.
When a sermon comes together, it is a magnificent thing. I grant you
this doesn't happen often, but when it does it's wonderful.
The bad thing about a really wonderful sermon is you can only preach it
one time. To me, this is not fair.
A singer, for example, can sing the same song over and over and over. If
it's a really good song, people in the audience will even request it.
My idea of heaven is having people request that I repeat one of my good
sermons. To date, no one has made such a request of me, which may mean
none are worth repeating.
(2) Sermons he wishes he could forget and hopes everyone else has.
Looking over my list of sermons, I was surprised by how many fit this
category.
Here's a good example, "How to Give in To Your Wife Without Giving Up
Your Manhood?"
I was 28 at the time and had been married for about seven years. I
thought I had a good grasp on this thing called marriage. Also, I
thought I had some wisdom to share along this line. If memory serves me
correctly, what I thought I knew I didn't.
I do remember the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage setting me straight
on that sermon. My manhood was severely challenged and I have never
repeated that sermon since.
Here's another sermon I wish I could forget. "When Your Get-up and Go
Got up and Went, Where Do You Go?" I have no idea what I was trying to
get at. I sure hope I never run into any former parishioner who
remembers this one.
(3) Finally, sermons long forgotten even by the preacher himself. I
noted that in 35 years of preaching I had quite a few belonging in this
category. As I tried to remember some of these long forgotten sermons
one thought struck me.
Where do forgotten sermons go? Is there some holding tank somewhere,
filled with forgotten sermons? Is there a sermontoruim for these
homiletically-challenged productions?
Still missing from my list was anything resembling a "great" sermon.
Then it hit me.
One sermon got away. How sermons get away from a person varies with each
minister. With computers these days, it is not difficult to lose a
great sermon. But the sermon I'm thinking of was B.C. (before
computers).
It's hard to believe there was a time before computers. Everything had
to be written by hand and stored in some filing system. My filing
system, before my computer, left much to be desired.
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